Entertainment

'Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5' is broken and you shouldn't play it

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 is a broken and poorly assembled game. It's not worth your time or money, and for fans of the series it's little better than a quarter-baked doppelganger of older, much better games.

You really don't need to read any further, not unless you want to stop and stare at the trainwreck.

It started with a noble idea, at least: bring the series back to the basic design that made it such a hit back in the '90s. Strip away the video editors, the mission-driven storytelling, the clunky virtual board controllers and focus instead on simple, challenge-based gameplay. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 was always meant to have more in common with the series first game than its last.

In that, it succeeds. You progress through each of the eight themed skate park maps by completing challenges, which can include anything from hitting certain score thresholds to collecting each letter in the word "SKATE" to using your fiery skateboard to ignite a set of tiki torches. Each challenge is scored on a three-star scale and earning a total of 15 stars in one map — a relatively easy task — unlocks the next one.

The bones are all where they should be, but they're riddled with everything from microfractures to compound breaks. If you can play THPS5 for more than a few hours without a full-stop crash to the dashboard, count yourself lucky. And when you do play, expect wretched frame rates in the online lobbies you're forced to join, as well as unpredictably glitchy behavior.

Those online lobbies hint at what might have been — if this been a functional game. While you have the option to jump into your own, private map, THPS5 defaults to an online freemode that populates whatever location you're rolling around in with other players. It's much more enjoyable to rip off minutes-long combos when you have an audience, and there's something undeniably cool about the "public skate park" vibe of online lobbies.

Unfortunately, online is where THPS5 seems to have the most issues. The game hiccups and sputters to the point that it's barely playable. You can move around well enough, but anything that requires precision — which is to say, roughly everything — is hobbled once the frame rate dips.

It's hard to describe without an object example, so see for yourself. The video shudder you see in the below clip isn't an issue with our capture device. This is just how live online gameplay looks about 50% of the time.

It would be less of a problem if THPS5 were cool with letting you play completely offline. But the game is designed in such a backwards way that your best bet is to just switch off your gaming machine's Internet connection. When you first fire up a map, the option is there to play offline. But as soon as you complete a challenge, you're sent straight back to an online freemode lobby.

The bad design doesn't stop there. THPS5 allows you to level up your skaters, earning stat points to improve their skills. But to apply those points or switch to a different skater, you have to quit out to the main menu. The same goes for switching maps; unlock a new one and you've got to quit, then start a new session. It's ungainly.

Even the music suffers. Tony Hawk games have always boasted large, licensed music soundtracks and the latest is no exception. But there's nothing in the game's options that lets you customize the soundtrack (a staple of past games), or even just view which bands are on it.

The fact that this game came out at all is mind-boggling, given the state it's in. But the idea of Activision slapping a $60 price tag on this trainwreck is an insult to fans of a once-great series, and video game consumers in general. You have a right to expect that your money is paying for a finished, functional work of entertainment. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 is neither. Avoid it at all costs.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

The Good

What? Haha, no.

The Bad

Literally everything.

The Bottom Line

Any quality ideas that might be tucked away inside 'Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5' are swept away by what amounts to a torrential downpour of Suck.

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